Mandoo (2010)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Road Movie  |   Run Time - 90 min.  |   Countries - Iraq  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

A dying man wants to go home, but some members of his family have different ideas in this drama from director Ebrahim Saeedi. It's 2004, and the news that Saddam Hussein has died sends shock waves through the Middle East. Shaho (Shahab Fazili) is the son of an elderly man of Iranian Kurdish heritage; the old man's health is failing him after suffering a stroke, and he's convinced he doesn't have long to live. Shaho, his father and their family have been living in an Iraqi refugee camp for a while, but with the passing of Saddam, Shaho believes the time is right for them to return to Iran, where father can spend his last days in the land of his birth. However, as Shaho is making plans for the trip back to Iran, his cousin Sheelan (Rojan Mahamad Jaza) visits the family for the first time in twenty years; her parents fled to Sweden when she was a child, where she's now a physician, and she wants her dying uncle to join her there where he'll be safe and well cared for. But who knows what's best for the old man? And who can say exactly what he wants, since the stroke has robbed him of his speech? Mandoo was shot from the point of view of the old man, with the viewer seeing the story as if through his eyes. The film received its North American premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

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